demme’s remake of the manchurian candidate. why was this necessary? too much fussy, techy stuff; old-fashioned hypnotism with a deck of cards much better.
we don’t live here anymore–good performances, especially from mark ruffalo (mike, what do you make of this character/film vis a vis your irresponsibility thesis?), but the film itself seems less and less interesting the further i get from it. overly obvious use of music. naomi watts excellent; laura dern does her woman on the verge thing, and does it well.
king arthur–no black knight, no constitutional peasant, no killer rabbits, no taunting frenchmen, no knights who say “ni”! instead, a very gloomy arthur, i mean arturius, who seems to see no conflict between his belief that all men (and presumably women) are born free and should remain so and his becoming king at the end. and lancelot lances not at all. some pleasure can be taken, however, from the following: stellan skarsgaard’s performance as a dour saxon; ray winstone chewing what little scenery is visible through the mist and smoke; and some danish star named mads mikkelsen (i think he used to play bass for motley crue) as a particularly fey sir tristram. high unintentional comedy in the dvd extras where jerry bruckheimer leads the stars, director and the screenwriter through a very self-important round-table discussion of the film.
Continue reading some recent netflix rentals